Assessing the Efficacy of a Muscle Strength Training Intervention for Sarcopenia in Middle-aged and Elderly Individuals

Project Rationale:

Taiwan entered an aging society in 2018 and is projected to become a super-aged society by 2025. With the increasing elderly population, age-related diseases have become an urgent issue in modern society. According to 2018 statistics from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the prevalence of sarcopenia among individuals aged 65 and above in Taiwan is 23.6% in men and 18.6% in women. Sarcopenia is a major contributor to disability in older adults. It is characterized by age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass, decreased muscle strength, and reduced physical performance, which may lead to disability, reduced quality of life, loss of independence, and increased risk of mortality.

Previous studies have shown that appropriate nutrition and exercise can delay the onset of sarcopenia and even increase muscle mass, potentially reversing the condition. This study is an extension of the project titled "EAssessment of the Intervention Effectiveness of Branched-chain Amino Acids(BCAA) Combined With Medium-chain Fatty Acid(MCFA) Products in Sarcopenia Among Middle-aged and Elderly Individuals." It is an interventional clinical study that recruits middle-aged and older patients with sarcopenia or pre-sarcopenia, using resistance training as the intervention. The results will be compared with the two original groups from the previous study to evaluate whether there are differences in intervention outcomes between resistance training and nutritional supplementation.

Project Objectives:

To evaluate whether there are differences in the effectiveness of resistance training and nutritional supplementation in the intervention of sarcopenia among middle-aged and older adults.